The BBC has been told that bodies are still washing up from the sea in Derna, a week after massive flash floods in Libya
There are fears for survivors in the city of Derna with not enough medicine and clean water for those who have been made homeless
A spokesperson for one aid organisation said trying to coordinate operations there was "a nightmare"
One official in eastern Libya has denied allegations that many of those killed were told to stay at home, saying soldiers told people to flee
Thousands of people were killed when two dams burst in the wake of Storm Daniel, washing away whole neighbourhoods in the city
Figures for the number of dead vary from around 6,000 to 11,000 - and with thousands still missing, the city's mayor says the total could reach 20,000
Here are the latest photos from Derna, just under a week after massive flash floods destroyed the city.
Image source, Reuters
Image source, Reuters
Image source, Reuters
Image source, Reuters
Anna Foster
Reporting from Libya
It’s a slow journey into Derna.
As you get closer, the fields on each side of the road are still flooded with rust-red water. Telegraph poles are toppled.
Then the traffic backs up as cars creep along newly-dug diversions around parts of the road that have washed away. There are lots of checkpoints along the way. At the entrance to the worst-affected parts of the city face masks are handed out, one for the driver and one for each passenger.
They help guard a little against the dust from the recovery work and the distinctive smell of death that fills the city now.
When you finally get first sight of the huge channel that’s been carved out of the earth where the river once flowed, it makes you pause and catch your breath.
Everything is gone, and only mounds of earth remain.
The heart of Derna is now just a wasteland.
Image source, ReutersThe port city had a population of around 90,000 people before this week's disaster. And with streets covered in mud and rubble and littered with upturned vehicles, these are the major issues facing people there:
Aid
The UN says around 800,000 people in Libya were in need of immediate humanitarian aid before the floods. They've launched an emergency appeal.
Turkey, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have sent rescue and medical teams, but the amount of aid that is arriving there doesn't appear to be anywhere near the volume of support needed.
Infrastructure
After years of civil war, the floods have caused extensive damage to infrastructure that was already struggling.
Roads and bridges were damaged in Derna and that is obstructing movement in and out of the city.
Disease
The large number of decomposing bodies still under collapsed structures and in floodwaters has prompted authorities to monitor the disease risk for survivors.
Libya's Interior Minister Emad al-Trabelsi says the authorities are investigating health hazards in the city and will make a decision on the threat of a potential outbreak.
The World Health Organization has said that dead bodies from natural disasters do not generally pose health risks., external
Anna Foster
Reporting from Derna
Even as night fell, recovery workers in Derna were still carefully removing bodies from the wreckage.
Amid the scene of chaos, with crumpled cars and uprooted trees scattered among shattered buildings, we watched one team carefully carry a heavy black body bag to a waiting ambulance.
It's a scene that's now been repeated thousands of times.
Aid organisations fear many dead still remain in the debris. They're also warning of the risk of disease to survivors.
Not enough medicine and clean water has yet reached Derna to protect those who have been made homeless by the flooding.
There are calls for them to be evacuated altogether from what remains of the destroyed city.
Image source, ReutersAn aerial view shows the destruction in the aftermath of the floods in Derna
Here's a quick look at the situation in Libya:
Jamie Whitehead
Live reporter
We are going to re-start our live coverage of the Libya floods now after another difficult night in the eastern city of Derna.
A spokesperson for one international aid organisation has said that coordinating aid operations in the city was a "nightmare", and earlier on Radio 4's Today programme our correspondent Anna Foster told Nick Robinson that "when you stand in Derna, you see how the whole centre of the city has been simply carved away. There is nothing left”.
Myself and Ali Abbas Ahmadi are in London working closely with our team in Libya to bring you updates throughout the day, stay with us.
It's at this point that we'll pause our live coverage of the Libya floods.
Thanks for joining us. This page has been edited by Alexandra Fouché, Dulcie Lee, James Harness and Emma Owen. It was written by Laura Gozzi, Jacqueline Howard, Ali Abbas Ahmadi, Ece Goksedef and Tarik Habte.
We'll shortly be pausing this coverage - so here's a look back at some of the latest developments from Libya:
Here's some dramatic footage received by the BBC that shows the velocity of floodwaters in the badly-hit city of Derna.
Recorded on Monday at 03:00 local time, the clip shows a car floating in a garage adjoining what appears to be the kitchen of a residence.
The amount of water unleashed in Derna - when the city's dams failed following Storm Daniel - was "essentially the force of an atomic bomb," says the director of a Libyan think tank.
Anas El Gomati, who heads up the Sadeq Institute, earlier said that the 100 terajoules that burst through Derna was a measurably stronger force than the 88 terajoules that were released when the United States bombed the Japanese city of Nagasaki in 1945. The BBC's not been able to independently verify that figure.
El Gomati also said that the scale of the tragedy could have been prevented had the authorities monitored the dams in the days before they failed: "We're not looking at a natural disaster... we have to understand the criminal negligence that was there in the moments before."
There have been calls from both of Libya's rival governments for an inquiry to look into whether the dams were neglected in the lead-up to the deadly storm.
Ali Abbas Ahmadi
Live reporter
Image source, EPAThe scale of the floods in Libya need a massive humanitarian response
They key to rescue efforts by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) are their local teams, says IFRC spokesperson Tomasso Della Longa.
Our national societies are our entry point, he says, which is why they are “usually the first to respond in every corner of the world,” he says.
In Libya, the Libyan Red Crescent are in touch with the international head office who then coordinate an international response, and tell foreign crews on the ground “what is needed, where to go, and how to [respond]”.
Partners are given a “shopping list” of what is required, and donations are transferred to the national team to procure whatever is required locally - which in turn can boost the economy just after a disaster.
Della Longa says the local Red Crescent response is crucial, as it takes longer for foreign crews to reach the stricken areas; not just because of the local infrastructure conditions, but also because they need to procure visas for all the rescue personnel and receive legal permission to bring medicines, food and other supplies.
The port city had a population of around 90,000 people before this week's disaster. And with streets covered in mud and rubble and littered with upturned vehicles, these are the major issues facing people there:
Aid
The UN says around 800,000 people in Libya were in need of immediate humanitarian aid before the floods. They've launched an emergency appeal.
Turkey, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have sent rescue and medical teams, but the amount of aid that is arriving there doesn't appear to be anywhere near the volume of support needed.
Infrastructure
After years of civil war, the floods have caused extensive damage to infrastructure that was already struggling.
Roads and bridges were damaged in Derna and that is obstructing movement in and out of the city.
Disease
The large number of decomposing bodies still under collapsed structures and in floodwaters has prompted authorities to monitor the disease risk for survivors, as we reported earlier.
Libya's Interior Minister Emad al-Trabelsi says the authorities are investigating health hazards in the city and will make a decision on the threat of a potential outbreak.
Surveillance footage shows the moment cars were swept away by flooding in the Maghar neighbourhood of the Libyan city of Derna.
The footage, verified by the BBC and dated to the early hours of 11 September, shows how rapidly the disaster unfolded.
Libya flooding: CCTV shows cars swept away in Derna
Image source, SKY NEWS ARABIA/XA video clip said to depict a tornado was later debunked as fake
Social media has been a key source of information about the deadly floods in Libya.
But as is often the case with natural disasters, misinformation has also been spreading online.
One video claiming to show a huge tornado near a supermarket and residential blocks after the floods in Libya has been shared widely on the platform X, previously known as Twitter.
But the video is a digitally-altered version of a real clip showing the impact of the 2016 Hurricane Matthew in Florida, external, and is unrelated to the floods.
Another widely shared video claims to show a torrent of water and debris streaming past houses in Derna.
However, the video is from 2021, and shows a massive mudslide, external in Japan’s Shizuoka prefecture caused by heavy rainfall.
Watch: BBC correspondent arrives in flood-hit Derna
We've received this video from our correspondent Anna Foster, who has just arrived in Derna.
She describes what it is like to see the scene of the disaster in person for the first time.
Mohamed Madi
Reporting from Derna, Libya
I've just arrived in Derna, the city in the north east of the country that has been devastated by the floods.
The call to evening prayer is ringing out at the Sahaba Mosque, while emergency and clean-up workers continue to work.
The centre of the city is a hive of activity with rescuers, ambulance crews and forensic teams working to identify the dead.
International aid agencies are not yet here in force.
But on my way here, I saw aid teams arriving from all across Libya - including from the west.
This is a tragedy that has, through its sheer scale, united this country.
Ashitha Nagesh
Community affairs correspondent
Image source, Hamzah AdamMosques across the UK have been collecting donations for Libya in a unified effort.
Today is Friday prayers — the busiest day of the week for mosques, outside of Eid.
The day of donations was coordinated by Islamic Relief, which has teams on the ground in Libya, with about two-dozen British mosques.
Image source, Hamzah AdamHamzah Adam, who fundraises for the charity, tells me he’s been travelling across the north helping mosques collect donations.
“It’s been heartwarming to see how people have responded with so much kindness,” Hamzah says.
“People came prepared. We loved to see how many people came with bags of coins, asking to donate… it was a really nice response.”
Image source, ReutersA spokesperson for the United Nations Humanitarian Office, Jens Laerke, has been speaking about the scale of the disaster.
"It came in the middle of the night and what we are seeing is terrifying. Very experienced emergency responders, who have been doing this for decades, say that this is one of the worst they have seen," he added.
Speaking to the BBC from Geneva, Laerke says there are still survivors and dead bodies under the rubble, and that it'll be some time before they know the true death toll.
"We are trying to not to have a second disaster there. It is critical to prevent a health crisis, to provide shelter, clean water and food," he says.
The spokesperson also points out that even before the flood, about 300,000 people needed aid.
Ali Abbas Ahmadi
Live reporter
Image source, ReutersRed Crescent personnel are forced to push a truck through the deep mud caused by the floods
Rescue operations after a disaster are always difficult. But in a country with rival administrations, a decade of fighting and chronic instability, those operations are a logistical “nightmare”, says Tomasso Della Longa, a spokesperson from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
“Libya one week ago was already complicated,” he says. And the floods have destroyed roads, communication and infrastructure to make an already complicated situation even more complicated.
Multiple reports have emerged of local Libyans criticising the international response. While he understands, he stresses the floods in Libya were "truly unbelievable” - and therefore so difficult to respond to.
“We use these words all the time, but I can tell you this time it’s unbelievable,” Della Longa stresses. Entire neighbourhoods of the city, and villages in other parts of the country were “wiped out” - words he does not use lightly, he says.
Ashitha Nagesh
Community affairs correspondent
In Leeds in the north of England, more than 2,500 miles away from the disaster, the Libyan community is in mourning.
Dr Faiz Mahdi and Dr Mohamed Elmahroug run a community group for Libyans.
They have a WhatsApp group of about 120 people. Since the floods, it has become a space for people to share fundraisers, exchange practical advice for getting in touch with loved ones, and to give each other emotional support.
"The impact on the community here is massive," Mohamed tells me.
Faiz adds that because the population of Libya is relatively small, "we almost all know each other as relatives, friends or colleagues". He says that even though he's from Benghazi he knows a lot of people from Derna.
One friend from the community has lost 17 family members in the disaster, Faiz says. Another has lost about 50.
Mohamed says they've organised a memorial service for tomorrow night, to "bring Libyans together".
"We don't want anyone to feel alone in the face of this calamity," he says.